DAVISON, MI -- As Marie Mata and David Mata Jr. settled into their seats inside Apollo Family Restaurant off State Road, they noticed a passing driver slow down to take a look at the family’s vehicle.

“It happens a lot,” said David of the driver peering into his vehicle from a red pickup truck. “Then you’ll see camera flashes.”

For anyone else, this might have been a cause for concern -- but there’s something different about his 1985 Buick LeSabre that swallows parking spaces whole.

The 47-year-old Richfield Township resident has turned the all-white hearse into a replica of the Ecto-1 vehicle from the popular 1980s film series “Ghostbusters.”

David Mata purchased the car for $1,900 at CW Coach Sales in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2005.

He came across it after searching online for a new family vehicle, after his Buick Roadmaster station wagon met its maker. He said he prefers service vehicles -- such as police cars, limousines, hearses, ambulances -- to regular automobiles because they have good motors and maintenance records, David said.

Since purchasing the vehicle with 35,000 miles, he's racked up more than 200,000 miles on the odometer. A mail carrier for 19 years, David had used the Buick to operate his route consisting of 560 homes in Davison and the surrounding communities after getting the go-ahead from his boss at the post office to use the hearse for work.

Prior to retiring the hearse as a work vehicle, David received several peculiar invitations from local residents while driving it along his 24-mile route.

"People would think it’s evil to have a hearse. They would say hello and give me pamphlets asking me to go to church,” he said. Marie’s vehicle, an all-black 1985 six-door Cadillac that she purchased to replace the family’s conversion van, also served as a funeral vehicle in a former life.

“Everyone thinks we’re a morbid family. We’re really not,” laughed Marie, 44, a Davison school bus driver for 13 years who previously drove tour buses and limousines taking residents from around the state on fall color tours, casino trips, up north to Sault Saint Marie or on Red Hat Society excursions.

It was not until 2009 when one of David and Marie’s five children worked at a haunted house in Genesee County that the idea came on transforming his vehicle into something that’s taken on a life of its own.

That’s when David met up with members of the Hell, Mich.-based Just Hearse’N Around group that talked with him about the group. While others vehicles in the group may have a skull or ornate hood ornament, he was urged to turn his vehicle into an iconic vehicle along the lines of Michael J. Fox’s Delorean from “Back To The Future," the Kitt car from “Knight Rider” fame or the Trans Am driven by Burt Reynolds in “Smokey and The Bandit.”

“People were saying 'Ghostbusters' when they saw it,” said David, who originally rejected the idea in favor of other potential setups, including a working ice cream truck.

“It was a good movie, but I wasn't a hardcore fan like the hobbyists. I wasn't deeply into it,” he said. After performing some research, David found the Ecto builders forum that provided him with dimensions, stickers and how to design some of the devices.

To create the replica, David used items from paint cans, a fruit bowl, fan pedestal, coffee percolator -- which doubles as a siren -- and tent poles. He also hand-copied the JL5-2020 phone number and quintessential ghost logo with a red circle and slash down the middle from the state Ghostbusters group to avoid potential copyright infringement.

AJ Quick, creator of the online website Ghostbusters Fans, said there was more than one model of the vehicle created for the movies starring Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd and Harold Ramis.

“There were two cars turned into the Ecto-1 and Ecto-1a respectively. The original car was a 1959 Cadillac Combination Hearse / Ambulance, produced by the Miller-Meteor company,” he said in an email. “There were only a few hundred cars like this produced, and as many as a dozen have been turned into Ghostbusters cars. They are exceedingly rare, and now fetch $20k-$30k, even in horrible condition. The original Ecto-1 was restored for the Ghostbusters Blu-ray release in 2008 or 2009.”

Quick said the original Ecto-1 was restored for the Ghostbusters Blu-ray release a few years ago, prior to which Sony had been considering crushing the vehicles and selling them for scrap. The Ecto-1a was in preparation for restoration, but Quick noted funding was pulled by Sony and the vehicle has been dismantled and placed in storage.

“They had no idea the importance of the cars. These cars were very much one of the things that made the Ghostbusters who they were,” he said. “They had just as much character as any of the actors, and a few scenes (deleted from the movie) were supposed to depict the Ecto-1 as having magical powers. Almost as if the Ghostbusters car was possessed!”

David's vehicle was in a Deadly Grounds Coffee commercial and included in the Just Hearse'N group's collection of 51 hearses riding together in 2011 that set a Guinness World Record. The record was eventually broken the following year by a group in the Netherlands who formed a convoy of 107 hearses.

The Michigan Ghostbusters group has also used the vehicle as a prop in one of their fan tribute videos. While David does not believe in ghosts, he said “I do have people that have thought about meeting with the hearse or taking it to a ghost investigation.”

Adornments on his vehicle were taken off for a brief period, as David tried a haunted house theme complete with kerosene lanterns, coach lights and dry ice to create a spooky atmosphere, but he was persuaded to place the Ghostbusters package back on the vehicle because of its popularity from those around him, including a young boy who had a birthday wish to take a ride in it.

David and Marie take the vehicle to shows, including the Woodward Dream Cruise, Back to the Bricks, 1980s-themed parties at Perani Arena and Crim Festival of Races and multiple haunted houses in Detroit, Pontiac and the Flint area.

But the family also uses the Buick for running day-to-day errands to the grocery store and camping trips with their children up north, where quizzical looks still often come from passersby -- but in a good way.

“People will be driving by on the highway and they’ll give me the thumb’s up or they’ll follow me until I stop and take photos,” David said. “I’ll flash the lights and play the siren for them. It’s a positive attitude.”

Roberto can be reached by phone at 810-429-3865, email at racosta1@mlive.com, on Facebook at Roberto Acosta Journalist or on Twitter @racostaJourno.